I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day. . . John 9:4a

Scatter

 You are permitted to understand the secrets of the Kingdom of God, Jesus told the disciples privately, But I use parables to teach the others so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled:  'When they look, they won't really see.  When they hear, they won't understand'  (Luke 8:10 NLT).  Jesus was quoting the book of Isaiah here, the sixth chapter.  The scene was a heavenly one.  An angel had just flown to Isaiah.  Holding a live coal from the altar, the angel touched the coal to Isaiah's lips, and said to him, Look. This coal has touched your lips.  Gone your guilt, your sins wiped out (The Message).  Isaiah reports what happened next.  And then I heard the voice of the Master:  'Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?"  Isaiah's response was immediate.  I spoke up, 'I'll go.  Send me!'  The Master then told Isaiah to go tell the people, even though the people had their fingers in their ears and blindfolds over their eyes, and weren't going to understand.  Scripture says that Isaiah was "astonished" by this.  Surely, too, the disciples were astonished that Jesus was asking them to go out and sow the seed of the Gospel everywhere to people who wouldn't understand.

            In the parable of the seed, the seed is God's word, and the farmer is the one who sows this seed. 

A farmer went out to plant his seed.  As he scattered it across his field, some seed fell on a footpath, where it was stepped on and the birds ate it.  Other seed fell among rocks.  It began to grow, but the plant soon wilted and died for lack of moisture.  Other seed fell among thorns that grew up with it and choked out the tender plants.  Still other seed fell on fertile soil.  This seed grew and produced a crop that was a hundred times as much as had been planted!  (Luke 8: 5- 8a NLT)

Notice three things the farmer doesn't do: 

1.  He doesn't make any judgments about the soil.

2.  He doesn't just scatter the seed on one type of soil.

3.  He doesn't micromanage the placement of each individual seed.

            How often do we "judge the soil" before we spread the seed of the Good News?  How often do we only share with those who seem most likely to receive the seed? Instead, we should be scattering seed wherever we go, as a natural part of our going.

            How often do we intentionally try to drill the gospel seed into a certain place, a certain person whom we have decided is most in need of it, thus making that person feel singled out, drilled at, acted upon instead of being allowed to act for themselves in that joy-filled response of opening and receiving?  Instead this kind of micromanaging, we should be scattering seed willy-nilly, letting it fall where it may without trying to manipulate or control the result.  Do we trust the Lord of the harvest with the harvest?  Do we?

            The Master told Isaiah, The country will look like pine and oak forest with every tree cut down--Every tree a stump, a huge field of stumps.  But there's holy seed in those stumps (The Message).  Though he didn't say it in exactly these words, Jesus went on to tell his disciples that they would encounter a lot of stump-like people as they scattered seed, but that wasn't their concern.  Scattering was their business. The seed was holy.  The same God who made it, the One who didn't place the Light of the world in the world only to hide His light under a bed or cover it with a basket, would someday reveal the truth.  For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all (Luke 8:17 NLT). 

            Can you make a seed?  Me either.  Who can?  Maybe it's time for us to trust the only One who can make a seed, trust Him with the seed He's made.  So, dear ones, scatter the secrets of that holy seed entrusted to you lavishly, abundantly, everywhere with abandon!  Then trust the Seedmaker to bring it to light and make its truth known.

Daye Phillippo

April 2013